Investors turn to Israeli agritech as demand for food swells.

Investors turn to Israeli agritech as demand for food swells.Israel tech aimed at farmers has drawn 7% of global investment in on-farm technologies, raising $80m in the first half of the year, report says. Israeli agriculture technologies for farmers have attracted some seven percent of global investment in the first half of 2017, a new report shows. Israeli agritech firms, whose technologies are used by farmers to improve the yield of crops and better monitor produce — called on-farm technologies — raised $80 million in the first half of the year, according to data released by Start-Up Nation Central, a nonprofit organization that connects companies and organizations to Israeli technology firms. The amount raised by the whole agritech sector — which includes on-farm technologies and other products such as supply chain monitoring — totaled $131 million in the first nine months of the year, 35 percent higher than the amount raised in the full year of 2016, when the sector raised $97 million. In 2016, Israel placed among the top five countries in terms of number of investment rounds in agritech, and the amount raised in the sector per capita was double that raised by US firms, the report said.